“Angela Merkel, leader of Germany for the past 16 years, is stepping down,” wrote Ngomakurira in The Zimbabwean.
“Much is being written about her legacy to Germany and the world but one comment, by Matt Qvortrup of Coventry University, is eye-catching: ‘She has turned German politics into a discussion about policy rather than politics.’
“Policy is about what we should be doing here and now to respond to the needs of the people for whom we are responsible. Politics is about what we should be doing to get the votes of those who support us. The others, for whom we are also responsible, can be ignored.
“Policy is focused on the common good and builds community. Politics is about responding to sectional interests and is divisive.”
Germany was in ruins at the end of the Second World War and yet, like Phoenix rising from the ashes, bounced right back to be one of prosperous nations on earth. Ask any student of history to name some of the qualities behind Germany’s success; hard work and meticulous attention to detail, they will answer.
It would be her meticulous attention to detail that would have forced Chancellor Merkel to value policy over politics. The spineless politician would go for the politics and the votes; she stayed the course, and pursued policy and the common good.
It must be said, she was luck to have to have in the German electorate a people with a discerning mind who valued Chancellor Merkel’s rational, calm, pragmatic and solution orientated approach to the rumble rousing empty rhetoric of other political leaders.
When Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980, the country had a robust economy, had a very productive agricultural sector which was the engine driving the economy, had mineral wealth, flora and fauna and, unlike most other Africa countries, a well educated population. The country was “the jewel of Africa, look after it” as the late Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, told Robert Mugabe at the time.
Zimbabwe had the potential to become the South Korea of Africa; dynamic, prosperous and above all free and justice. Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies were after absolute power and moved swiftly to establish a de facto one party dictatorship modelled on the likes of North Korea. The ordinary Zimbabweans were never given a meaningful vote to pick on the Zimbabwe they wanted.
Ever since 1945, Germany has had a healthy and functioning democracy and the nation has had the democratic space to allow quality debate and democratic competition to weed out the mediocre leaders to allow quality leaders, creme de la creme, to be elected into office.
I would say in 1980 Zimbabwe was a glass-full of wholesome milk to which was added a few drops of cholera infected sewage in the form of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies. The glass-full of milk was transformed into a glass full deadly sewage! And from the pond of sewage scum, not cream, has risen to the top.
Zimbabwe, even after 41 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule, is not in the sorry economic state Germany was in 1945 and can easily rise from the gutter, dust herself off, and still be a proud, prosperous nation at peace with itself. The one thing stopping the national revival is the thick scum of corrupt and incompetent leaders who now believe they have the divine right to rig elections and stay in power.
The thick scum has bloated out the light and fresh air making the ordinary people weak and powerless to asset they basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life. There is no doubt that some day the people will break Zanu PF’s strangle hold on the nation but the chances are it will be to replace the corrupt and tyrannical regime with one mediocre regime after another.
Zimbabwe has the great misfortune to have corrupt and incompetent thugs like Robert Mugabe as leaders at the nation’s formative years, the rot has been woven into the fabric of the nation, it is near impossible to pick out and remove very one of the rotten fibres. Zimbabwe is like a broken clay pot, even if it can be put together again it will never sound whole!
5 comments:
You are right generations, dating back to the colonial days, of being systematically brainwashed and belittled has left our people with a slave mentality, an inferiority complex; that is near impossible to overcome. "The thick scum has bloated out the light and fresh air making the ordinary people weak and powerless to asset they basic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life," as you said.
Telling the ordinary Zimbabweans they can force this Zanu PF regime to implement the democratic reforms has been a complete waste of time because it doesn't matter how many times you tell them their have a right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country, they don't believe it. They believe it is Zanu PF that has the right to rig elections and they have to make the most of that reality.
It does not help one bit when the men and women the nation risked life and limb to elect into power to champion the fight for democratic reform and free and fair elections are themselves the doubting Thomas. Everything that MDC leaders have said and done these last 22 years is pay lip service to democratic reform and hence the reason they have failed to implement even one reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. MDC leaders believe free and fair elections are a privilege not a right and it is rich to expect the minions who follow them blindly to be any more assertive!
MDC leaders have failed to implement even one reform in 22 years, a reality that has escape the majority of the Zimbabwean people and proof of the ill effects of the scum bloating out the light and air. The people can see and hear what has happened but have clearly failed to perceive and comprehend the reality and its consequences. They cannot think for themselves.
The ability to pay meticulous attention to detail is only possible to one who can comprehend facts and think for oneself.
Zimbabwe is a nation ruled by fear and ignorance and there is very little room left for anyone to think and reason. The deeper into this hell-on-earth the nation sinks the greater the panic and desperation, squeezing out the little space left to reason and think. Of course, we are in deep trouble!
Government data showed that since the vaccination programme started in mid-February this year, 2,312 million, about 15,6% of the population, had been fully inoculated by October 3.
The average number of people who got their first doses peaked at around 37 000 per day in mid-July when the country was in the throes of the third wave, but dropped to around 12 000 for the whole of last week.
As at Sunday this week, 3 111 885 people had received their first COVID-19 doses. Zimbabwe has targeted to vaccinate about 10 million people, or 60% of the population, to achieve herd immunity by year end.
COVID-19 national taskforce chief co-ordinator Agnes Mahomva blamed complacency on the part of the public for the falling numbers.
"We will never give up working towards achieving our ambitious target of vaccinating 60% of our population by year end. It is, however, determined by a number of factors such as the willingness of the public to take the vaccine," she said.
Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike said the falling vaccination numbers was because of poor strategic planning.
"The current vaccination strategy lacks focus on people and the community," Rusike told NewsDay.
"The issue of misinformation and lack of trust in the community with respect to COVID-19 vaccines and even the pandemic itself needs to be tackled by carrying out a sustained COVID-19 health literacy at the community level to dispel myths about vaccines so that we can increase vaccine uptake by building community confidence and acceptance."
He urged people to get vaccinated ahead of the fourth wave expected to hit the country in December.
If only 15.6% have been fully vaccinated and already the country is having problems of vaccine uptake - a problem other nations have faced but only when 80% of their population have been vaccinated - one has to question the effectiveness of the government’s vaccination campaign. The very fact that the regime has already resorted to coercive measures goes to show this is a government that rules by fear and, in this case, one suspects the regime is trying to hide something.
The regime knows it is not going to have 60% fully vaccinated by the end of the end because it does not have the vaccines and or staff to administer the vaccines and so is blaming the people’s reluctance to be vaccinated for its failure.
Hopewell Chin’ono Responds To Why Do You Always Report Negative Stuff, Question.
Those who complain of "reporting negative stuff", do not denying the report is factual; indeed they are even more concerned that the report is factual; their primary concern is that the truth should be swept under the carpet. They don't want the world to know that Zanu PF leaders are corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrants, for example; it is not doing the country's image any good, they will argue. They do not care that the are millions of ordinary Zimbabweans whose lives have been turned into hell-on-earth precisely because the nation has been in the hands of corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs for the last 41 years.
Sweeping the corruption and tyranny have not forced the Zanu PF thugs to change their ways; it has done the exact opposite, it has encouraged them to continue and get worse.
Zimbabwe is in this hell-on-earth because many Zimbabweans have turned a blind eye to Zanu PF corruption and thuggery, at best; at worst they have joined in the corruption and thuggery. We must now reverse this folly; people must take the responsibility of restoring rule of law and good governance with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands.
On Monday MDC T, through Morgen Komichi, called for the postponement of elections citing the need for “ample time for economic recovery.”
This is the kind of foolish statements that one would expect from those who have no clue what they are talking about. There are some parts of the constitution a tyrannical regime can bend or even break and expect to get away with and there are others even Zanu PF must know it will never get away with.
Everyone knows that a politician’s job is never done and so if we allowed politicians to postpone elections to extend their stay in office for “ample time for economic recovery” then they will be motivated to completely destroy the economy to ensure no recovery and so extend their rule forever!
We certainly need an interim administration to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. It would be pointless to have any Zanu PF or MDC leaders in the interim regime since they are the ones who failed to implement any reforms in the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
Our scum of the earth leaders are incapable of coming up with anything one can call policy because they are incapable of comprehending detail. When Mnangagwa announced his "Zimbabwe is open for business!" mantra, people thought he was up to something. When is became clear he really had no plan beyond the wishful think of every leader to be the greatest ever, the mantra was dead in the water.
Nelson Chamisa loves making a big song and dance about what MDC A is doing and the sheer audacity and mastery of the plan or to find it is just empty rhetoric. "MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the (2018) election!' he boasted. All nonsense MDC A had nothing lined up to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Nothing!
Come 2023, Chamisa is fighting to win as many of the bait gravy train seats Zanu PF normally gives away so he can claim to be the country's main opposition leaders; he knows that Zanu PF is rigging the elections and is guaranteed a landslide victory. He knows that by participating he is giving Zanu PF legitimacy and does care about that or the consequences of it.
Will we ever have quality leaders? I doubt that very much. We are destined for corrupt and tyrannical regime as the norm and occasionally get a mediocre regime as a treat!
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